Sunday, September 15, 2013

The Hyder-Ally Privateers


From Maine Stories:

"The Hyder Ally was built in Portland by shipwright Samuel Fickett at a dock near the foot of Park Street."

"The Hyder Ally's keel was laid before the war was declared. There just was no market for ships in these times, but "Fickett concluded to finish her and trust to luck for a purchaser." Times were tough; Maine was devastated by the Embargo and Non-Intercourse acts. Few, if any shipbuilders, were laying keels. Any investment that Fickett had in the hull which became the Hyder Ally was rescued just as times began to change, and there was some resurgence in a market looking for privateers."


Source

From Portland In The Past:

The ship Hyder Ally...was not especially built for a privateer but was constructed to carry a battery, as no vessel was then safe on the high seas without one. Her register at the Custom House says she was of three hundred and sixty-seven tons. She was built for speed as most vessels of her time were; drogers were sure to be picked up by the armed vessels of some nation, and during Napoleon Bonaparte's time, it was hard to comply with the restrictions of all the belligerents.
The captain of the ship was Israel Thorndike of Beverly; first lieutenant, Henry Oxnard of Portland; second and third officers, Perry of Salem, and Noah Edgecomb, a rigger of Portland. The ship carried a crew of fifty men, among them Alexander Paine, Aaron Jordan, John Raynor, and others of Portland. 

The Hyder Ally eventually became the prize of the Owen Glendower.


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